JONESVILLE, S.C. (AP) - A party attended by hundreds on a rural road in upstate South Carolina ended with gunfire, two men dead and five more wounded.
The Union County coroner said 21-year-old Curtis Lamont Bomar of Spartanburg died Saturday night before he could be taken to a hospital, while 17-year-old Jabbrie Brandon of Union died later at a hospital.
Union County sheriff’s deputies began responding to the party near Jonesville because of complaint about noise and vehicles parked on public roads. Officials told local news outlets that as many as 1,000 people were at the party, being hosted at three homes.
Deputies had already been on the scene for three hours, and had begun to tow away illegally parked cars. Then someone started shooting, leading to several minutes of gunfire. Witnesses said that when the shooting began, people began running down the rural road and some people were trampled.
“You had the people that were hit that had gunshot wounds. We were trying to get to them and get EMS in there to help them, so very chaotic,” is how Union County Sheriff’s Major Scott Coffer described the incident.
Two men who were arrested for lesser offenses could face charges of attempted murder and homicide, Coffer said.
Officers found more than one gun and said more arrests could be made.
Some of the shooting victims were innocent bystanders, officials said.
Officials said they’ve had complaints in this area before over parties around this time of year.
When asked why deputies didn’t break up the party during the initial call, Union County Sheriff David Taylor said that, “It was a private party and there was no law against it.”
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